LAST week an old friend telephoned me.

David (that’s not his real name) retired a few years ago from a highly technical job.

He is a very bright man but he doesn’t like paying for professional advice. He has time on his hands and prefers to read about things for himself. Including tax.

He’d bought a book about inheritance tax but couldn’t understand how one of the ideas in the book worked.

He explained it to me and I couldn’t understand how it worked either. When he told me who had written the book I had to smile.

By coincidence I was heading to Scotland the next day to speak at a tax conference, the author was one of the other speakers and I have known him for years.

When we’d both delivered our lectures I asked the author about the inheritance tax planning David had described to me.

He looked perplexed for a few moments and then said: “Your friend has completely misunderstood what I wrote – that would never work.”

Relieved, I said that was my view too. We both agreed on what the right advice should be.

The author said he’d be happy to advise my friend as by another coincidence they live a few miles from each other, but that it would have to be done formally.

Tax is an incredibly complex subject these days and it is generally impossible to write a short piece in a newspaper or indeed a chapter in a book aimed at a general reader that covers matters fully.

It is why there is always a caveat advising the reader to take advice.

This recent example is not unique. Over the years I have seen a number of cases where someone has acted on the basis of a newspaper article or a discussion with a friend or acquaintance.

Sometimes things have worked out, but often they have not and while some situations were salvageable others were beyond hope.

I haven’t called David back yet but my advice will be to take up the author’s offer. The advice will cost several hundred pounds. It could save tens of thousands of pounds.

The moral is a simple one. You can often find good tax planning ideas in the press or in books, but you should always check your understanding with an expert. The cost of a misunderstanding can be considerable.

*Paul Aplin OBE is a tax partner with A C Mole & Sons and chairman of the Technical Committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales Tax Faculty; you can follow him on Twitter @PaulAplinOnTax. He and fellow tax partners Amanda Gunter and Paul Kingdom can be contacted on 01823-624450.